I cried to my brother as he was leaving the room, "Norman, do not touch the mail-bag, or you will get into trouble; and think how dreadful it would be for me to feel that I was the cause of it to you. Frith is not like old Joynson." "He is a conceited fellow, who needs to be taught his place," returned Norman, his face flushing as he spoke. "But no fear of my being tempted to give him a lesson to-day. I shall be too late." Norman darted across the hall, and, scorning the regular paths, quickly reached a short cut used only by our own family to facilitate our passage to the station when we walked thither. I knew that his impatience was all on my account; but I was not a little troubled about possible results. I hoped he might be late; for I dreaded a collision between him and our new station-master, Edward Frith. Everybody knows what kind of position is occupied by the great man in an agricultural village—the squire who owns every foot of land for miles, and is literally monarch of all he surveys. He is generally beneficent and patriarchal, and there is a kindly familiarity between him and his people; but his sway was a pretty absolute one in my young days. Such a position had Norman been early called on to fill, and through Uncle Bernard's generosity he had more talents to account for than those who preceded him, and less of the experience which comes with well-spent years than might have been desired. Old Joynson, the first station-master at Overford, was a man who believed in the infallibility of the squires of King's Court. Had not his ancestors been tenants on the estate for ages? Did he not owe his post to their influence? And was not the word of him who ruled at the Court as law to the old retainer, in whom something of the ancient feudal spirit survived, despite the reforms and changes of the nineteenth century? During the last years of Joynson's life, he allowed Norman to take liberties which no one in his position could permit without a gross breach of trust. If my brother were expecting letters of importance, he would seize the mail-bag, break the seal, open it, and select from its contents his own particular share. It not infrequently happened that all the letters were for residents at King's Court, and though Norman insisted that old Joynson should look at the addresses, the man deemed it almost superfluous, remarking, often enough, "Of course, squire, you'd only take what is your own, or for the Court." Joynson's successor was a man of another stamp; a smart, active, city-bred clerk, married to one of our Overford girls, but with none of his predecessor's feudal prejudices, and rather proud than otherwise of not exactly hitting it with young Mr. Savell. He would have scorned to call Norman "the squire." Very unwisely, my brother attempted to continue his old practice; but the first time he lifted the mail-bag, Frith courteously but firmly requested him to put it down.